Blackstone Town had become hell.
The cold air was filled with the heavy smell of gunpowder and blood. The gray streets were stained dark red by scattered bodies and flowing blood.
"Bang!"
With a gunshot, a young man trying to climb a wall to escape screamed. Hit in the thigh, he fell heavily from the wall and rolled in the muddy water in pain.
"I hit him! I hit him!"
The Celestial Dragon, Saint Brax, rode on the back of a strong slave, waving his arms in excitement. The barrel of his gold musket still smoked.
"That one ran pretty fast. That's 3 points! Write it down! Hurry and write it down!"
The CP0 Captain beside him checked off a mark on a scorecard.
"As you wish, Your Holiness. The total score has reached 86 points."
"Why only 86 points? Too slow! Too slow!"
Saint Brax complained, kicking the slave beneath him hard in the ribs.
"Did you not eat? Run! Go over there! There are more people there!"
The slave let out a pained groan. On all fours, he rushed toward another alley.
In the alley, a group of women and children hiding behind a pile of junk screamed and scattered at the sudden noise.
"Hahaha! The screams of women! I like it!"
Saint Brax raised his gun and fired blindly into the crowd without aiming.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Blood sprayed among the crowd.
An old woman with bad legs ran too slowly and fell into the muddy water. She looked back in despair, only to see the dark barrel of the gun.
"Tch, it's an old thing."
Saint Brax clicked his tongue.
"A zero-point piece of trash. Don't get in my way! You're wasting my bullets!"
He did not even bother to shoot. He simply drove the massive, five-hundred-pound slave beneath him to trample hard right over the old woman.
"Crack."
The sound of breaking bones was drowned out by the surrounding screams.
Not far away, a strong blacksmith raised a hammer to fight back, trying to protect his wife and daughter behind him.
"You should have stayed down."
An escorting CP0 agent sneered and moved in.
He did not kill the man directly. Instead, he kicked twice. Two slicing air blades cut across the blacksmith's knees.
"Ah!!!"
The blacksmith's knees shattered instantly. He screamed and fell to his knees, unable to stand again.
"Your Holiness, this stationary target has been prepared for you."
The CP0 agent stepped aside and made a welcoming gesture, as if presenting a prize.
"Well done! I love this kind of desperate look!"
Saint Brax laughed and stepped forward, pressing the hot gun barrel right against the blacksmith's forehead.
"A rebel... this is worth extra points!"
"Bang!"
Watching her husband get shot in the head right before her eyes, the wife behind him let out a broken cry. But her crying only earned wilder laughter from the devil.
The entire town shook under this reckless slaughter.
The terrified crowd rushed into the narrow alleys, trying to find any way out. But in this desperate escape, not everyone was lucky.
At the end of a dead-end alley piled with junk.
A little boy named Tommy tightly grabbed his mother's clothes and trembled.
His mother desperately shielded him behind her back. She leaned against the cold wall with nowhere left to run.
"Found you..."
At the entrance of the alley, Saint Brax slowly approached on his slave. His tiny eyes fixed on the mother and son, drool running down his chin.
"Look what I found! A mother and son huddled together!"
He excitedly raised his gold musket and shouted the sick rule he had made earlier.
"If I pierce both with one shot... that's 10 points!"
"This is the highest-scoring prey! This is art!"
Hearing this, the mother pulled Tommy behind her and tried to cover him completely with her thin body.
"Please... kill me... let my child go."
She knelt on the ground and knocked her forehead against the dirt until it bled. She seemed not to notice it and kept begging.
"You're in the way."
Saint Brax frowned in annoyance.
"You're blocking him too well. If I don't shoot through, won't my 10 points be ruined?"
The CP0 Captain, following closely beside him, instantly understood.
"Rest assured, Your Holiness. I will adjust the target for you."
Saying that, he raised his hand. His index finger instantly turned black like iron.
"Shigan!"
"Thwack!"
An air bullet shot out and pierced the mother's right shoulder.
"Ah!!!"
The huge impact threw her backward against the wooden wall, leaving her unable to move.
Now, she could no longer cover the child behind her.
Tommy rushed up crying, trying to cover his mother's bleeding wound, but he exposed his little head to the gun barrel.
"Perfect!"
Saint Brax laughed loudly. He raised the gold gun and aimed the dark barrel at the overlapping mother and son.
"10 points... are mine!"
He slowly pulled the trigger.
The mother closed her eyes in despair, using her last bit of strength to tightly hug the child in her arms.
The gun was already aimed at them.
However.
Just as that fat finger was about to press the trigger completely down.
"BOOM!!!"
Thunder exploded above the town.
There was no sound of a bullet firing.
Because before that, a blue-white bolt of lightning tore through the alley. It crossed several kilometers in an instant, split the mud, and blasted straight toward Saint Brax.
"What?!"
The CP0 Captain reacted first.
As a master of Observation Haki, he barely sensed the attack a split second before the lightning arrived.
It was too fast.
So fast that even his thoughts could not keep up.
"Air Door!"
At the last second, he had no time for extra thoughts. He activated his fruit ability by instinct.
He pulled open a black spatial door in the air beside Saint Brax, grabbed the Celestial Dragon's fat arm, and dragged him inside.
"BOOM!!!"
The lightning brushed the edge of the spatial door and hit empty air. The heat instantly evaporated the muddy water on the ground into white fog.
Although he escaped the fatal hit, Saint Brax rolled out of another spatial door a few meters away in a complete mess.
The gold musket had melted from the extreme heat, burning his hands into blisters. He fell into a dirty ditch full of feces and mud, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Ah!!! My hands! My hands!!!"
His screams echoed through the ruins.
In front of the mother and son.
The blinding lightning slowly faded.
A tall figure wearing a Justice coat appeared there at some point.
The bottom of the coat flapped loudly in the wild wind. The word "Justice" was clear on his back.
Marine Headquarters Rear Admiral Aiden, the Reaper.
He did not even look at the rolling Celestial Dragon behind him. Instead, he knelt on one knee in front of the mother and son.
When he saw the wound in the mother's shoulder, Aiden's hand stopped for a moment.
"Don't be afraid."
Aiden flipped his hand, and a few rolls of clean white gauze and fine blood-stopping powder appeared in his palm out of nowhere.
He quickly and gently bandaged the mother.
"It will be okay soon."
After treating the wound, Aiden looked up at the little boy who was scared stiff.
He reached out and gently rubbed Tommy's dusty hair.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm late."
The mother held Tommy tighter and started crying.
"Waaah!!!"
Tommy and his mother could no longer hold it back. They hugged each other and cried.
However.
This warmth did not last long.
"Bastard! Bastard!!"
Behind them, Saint Brax finally snapped out of it as he crawled out of the dirty ditch.
He looked at the burns all over his hands and his expensive clothes covered in mud and waste. His whole body shook with anger.
When he looked up and clearly saw the back standing in front of the mother and son, and that iconic Marine coat, he screamed again.
"A... Marine?!"
Saint Brax widened his eyes, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"It's a Marine?!"
"I am a Celestial Dragon! I am a World Noble! I am your master!!"
"How dare a Marine attack me?! Do you know who I am?!"
He shouted at him.
"Get over here! Kneel down! I'm going to tear you to pieces!"
Yet Aiden acted as if he had not heard a thing.
He kept his back to the Celestial Dragon. He even carefully wiped the tear stains from Tommy's face and told him,
"You're a brave man, right? Take your mom out of here. Run toward the port, and no matter what you hear, don't look back."
"I promise, you won't get hurt again."
Seeing Aiden ignore him completely, Saint Brax could not take it.
"Ahhh! I'm so angry! I'm so angry!"
Brax's face twisted. He snapped his head toward the CP0 agents beside him and screamed.
"What are you standing around for?! Didn't you see this Marine try to attack a World Noble?!"
"Kill him! Kill him! I'll chop him into meat paste to feed my slaves!!"
Hearing this order.
Except for the Door-Door Fruit Captain who kept guarding the Celestial Dragon, the other four elite CP0 agents looked at each other.
Of course they knew who this man was.
He was the Marine who had killed Golden Lion Shiki. He was the rising Marine hero on the seas.
Making them kill someone this strong? How was that any different from throwing away their lives?
"Still not moving?! Are you trying to disobey orders?!" Saint Brax shouted again. "Believe it or not, I will throw all your families into Impel Down!"
That sentence became the last straw.
The four CP0 agents exchanged one look.
They were dead either way.
They could only fight.
Without a word, the four activated Rokushiki at the same time.
They disappeared from sight for a moment. Then they attacked the man from four sides—front, back, left, and right—all at once.
"Shigan!"
"Rankyaku!"
The killing moves closed in.
Only at this moment did Aiden slowly stand up.
He looked over the bodies in the mud, the twisted limbs, and the corpses whose eyes were still open.
Since he arrived in this world, countless pirates had died by his hands.
Used to killing, Aiden thought he had long gone numb. He even thought he had gotten used to looking at this sea from an outsider's point of view, treating death as part of this cruel era.
But right now, when he saw it.
Civilians treated like animals.
Hunted and chased down, just to entertain a piece of trash.
His grip tightened around Oto.
It was a rage he had almost forgotten, sparked by something he still refused to accept.
He turned his head.
Electricity cracked in the air around him.
"You chose wrong."
Aiden's thumb pushed Oto slightly out of its sheath.
The four CP0 agents reached him from four sides at the same time.
Aiden drew.
A blue-white cut crossed the ruined street.
For a brief moment, the four agents kept moving.
Then their bodies split at the waist.
Blood burst out and splashed across the mud, the broken walls, and Saint Brax's white clothes.
[Judgment successful x4]
The upper halves of the four CP0 agents hit the ground first.
A moment later, their legs collapsed after them.
Saint Brax stopped shouting.
His mouth stayed open, but no words came out.
The four agents who had rushed forward under his orders were now lying in pieces at his feet.
Aiden stepped through the blood and walked toward him.
For every step he took, he saw more of the town.
The old woman crushed in the mud.
The blacksmith lying beside his wife.
The bodies near the barricade.
The people who had tried to run and had fallen only a few meters from safety.
Aiden's fingers tightened around Oto.
He had arrived as fast as he could.
And still, he was late.
He could kill the people responsible. He could cut down every CP0 agent here. He could tear this Celestial Dragon apart where he stood.
But none of that would make the dead stand up again.
Saint Brax pushed himself backward with both hands. His burned fingers sank into the mud, and his expensive clothes dragged through the dirty water.
"You... don't come any closer..."
Aiden did not answer.
Saint Brax kept crawling back, faster and faster.
"I am a Celestial Dragon... I am a World Noble... You can't kill me..."
A warm stream ran down his legs and mixed with the mud beneath him.
The man who had hunted people for sport finally understood what it felt like to be hunted.
Whoosh!
The CP0 Captain appeared in front of him.
His legs were shaking, but he still forced himself to stand between Aiden and Saint Brax. Behind his back, his fingers pulled at the air, slowly opening a black Air Door.
He only needed a few seconds.
Just a few seconds, and he could throw Saint Brax inside.
"Stop!"
The Captain shouted.
"Do you understand what you're doing?! This is Saint Brax! If you kill a World Noble, the Government will never let you go!"
Aiden kept walking.
The Captain's hand moved faster behind his back.
"Even Commander-in-Chief Kong won't be able to protect you! The Five Elders will order every force under the World Government to hunt you down!"
Aiden stopped in front of him.
The CP0 Captain's shoulders tightened.
For one instant, he thought Aiden might listen.
Then Aiden raised Oto.
"Move."
The Captain clenched his teeth and stepped in harder.
Aiden swung.
Lightning ran along the blade, mixed with Haki, and the slash cut straight toward the CP0 Captain and Saint Brax behind him.
Before the blade landed, the air in front of Aiden turned red.
"BOOM!"
A huge magma fist smashed into Oto from the side.
The impact blew mud, blood, and broken stones across the street. White steam rose as the heat burned through the wet ground.
When the steam thinned, a tall man in a dark red suit stood between Aiden and the Celestial Dragon.
Vice Admiral Sakazuki, one of Headquarters' strongest candidates for Admiral.
His right arm was magma from the elbow down, pressed hard against Oto's blade. The edge of the sword hissed against the molten rock.
Sakazuki did not look back at Saint Brax.
He kept his arm against Aiden's sword.
"Aiden."
The magma on his arm bubbled and dripped onto the ground.
"You are too extreme."
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